It is the body’s own white blood cells that cause the symptoms of a cold. They are attracted to the nose when it is infected and release powerful natural disinfectant chemicals to kill the invading viruses.

In the study the cocktail of inactivated rhinoviruses stimulated neutralising antibodies against all 25.

And a bigger mixture of 50 types did exactly the same thing in tests on rhesus macaques.

Researchers showed in the 1960s it was possible to vaccinate people against one variety of rhinovirus and prevent them from getting sick when exposed to samples of the same virus.

The trouble was the sheer diversity of rhinoviruses - or that is how it appeared at the time.

Prof Moore said: “It is surprising nobody tried such a simple solution over the last 50 years.

“We just took 50 types of rhinovirus and mixed them together into our vaccine, and made sure we had enough of each one.

“If we make a vaccine with 50 or 100 variants, it is the same amount of total protein in a single dose of vaccine. The variants are like a bunch of slightly different Christmas ornaments, not really like 50 totally different vaccines mixed.”

Antibodies generated in response to the vaccine were tested for their ability to prevent the virus from infecting human cells in culture. But the vaccines could not be tested for their ability to stop animals from getting sick.

Prof Moore added: “There are no good animal models of rhinovirus replication.

“The next step would be human challenge models with volunteers, which are feasible because the virus is not very pathogenic.”

On any day from September to March at least 50 million people worldwide are suffering from cold symptoms. In a lifetime we suffer from more than 200 bouts of common cold, each lasting five to six days.

Although the majority of cold sufferers can easily shake off their symptoms, approximately four million children worldwide die of acute respiratory infections, mainly in the third world.